Chinese Media Yearns to Play a Bigger Role in Cultural Heritage Protection

CHP recently organised two major training activities for the Chinese media – one of the most important stakeholders in cultural heritage protection. Working with Internews, an international media training organization, CHP held a training session for over twenty journalists from Northeast China on January 6, 2007. This was the first in a series of media training sessions around China where CHP will provide specialized expertise on cultural heritage protection law. CHP also responded to a request by CCTV-2 to discuss cultural heritage protection laws. CHP was greeted enthusiastically by over fifty editors and journalists.

Compared with economic and entertainment news, or even environmental protection news, cultural heritage protection receives very little Chinese media attention. This is mainly because most Chinese media professionals have not been properly educated about cultural heritage protection issues. With a media training program in place, and top-level experts engaged in the issue, we are very happy to see that this situation is changing. An increasing number of journalists and other media employees have shown interest in our cultural heritage protection training sessions.

During the two recent media training sessions, we introduced and analyzed two cultural heritage-related articles from two prominent Chinese newspapers. We provided the relevant legal background for the articles, and showed how these reports could better analyse cultural heritage protection laws and regulations. Both reports were written with good intentions, but their effects were not constructive, and possibly even negative for cultural heritage protection efforts.

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center has always supported the media’s involvement in cultural heritage protection. We will build on these two training sessions to engage many more responsible Chinese media representatives in our cultural heritage protection efforts.